Chennai, Aug 9 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Monday personally conducted an inspection of passengers from Kerala arriving on a train at the Chennai Central Railway station.

The health minister along with the Tamil Nadu Dewaswom Minister P.K. Sekar Babu, Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan and other officials inspected the documents of the passengers from Kerala, including RT-PCR and vaccination certificates.

With Kerala having more than seven times the daily Covid-19 cases of Tamil Nadu, the TN government has made it mandatory for all passengers from Kerala to carry negative RT-PCR certificates not older than 72 hours. Passengers, who have taken two doses of vaccine and with the second dose taken 15 days prior to the travel, are also allowed to travel.

The Tamil Nadu health minister had earlier visited the Chennai international airport and checked on the facilities to inspect the Covid certificates at the airport.

If the passengers, who reach Tamil Nadu do not have the above-mentioned certificate, they will have to mandatorily take the RT-PCR test and if found positive would be shifted to first-line treatment centres.

Ma Subramanian told IANS, "I was in the Chennai Central Railway station today morning to inspect the passengers arriving from Kerala. As the Covid-19 cases are increasing in Tamil Nadu, we have to take precautions and hence the check on the passengers arriving from Kerala where the number of Covid cases are many times more than ours."